It took just 11 years to go from the first flight of the Lancaster bomber in
1941 to the first flight of the VX770, the prototype of Vulcan bomber in 1952
yet the difference between them could hardly be greater. The Vulcan along with
the victor and valiant were a new generation of planes known as the V
bombers planes for a new era and a newly nuclear-armed Britain. In 1945 Britain
emerged victorious from a Second World War financially bankrupt but rich with
engineering genius the nation that had fought off the Luftwaffe crack being
enigma code and created radar was flush with a new generation of world-beating
engineers and scientists who went to work for the great british aero
corporations like Hawker Siddeley Westland and vickers-armstrong war was
over but another race was beginning as the Soviets in the Americans jostle to
find a new balance of power. The price of a seat of a big boys table soon became
clear an independent nuclear deterrent in 1947 just five years after the first
Lancaster went into service the British government issued a specification for a
new bomber one which could have a range of up to 3,700 kilometres 2,300 miles
cruise at 930 kilometers an hour 580 miles an hour and
at between 35 and 55,000 feet and also carry a 5 ton nuclear bomb. Because they
flew so high and fast they will be out of a range of anti-aircraft weapons and
enemy fighters so they had no active defenses like the previous generation of
bombers. By 1952 Britain had tested its first atomic bomb in operation hurricane
detonating a 25 kiloton device off of Western Australia but just as the
British were celebrating joining the nuclear Club three weeks later the
Americans tested their first hydrogen bomb
IVY Mike some four hundred times more powerful. Prime Minister Winston
Churchill ordered that Britain should have his own H-bomb by 1957 and the V
bombers would be the delivery system with the first H-bomb test being air
dropped by a Valiant bomber. Back in 1947 the government put a tender out to three
companies Avro Handley page and vickers-armstrong it was a demanding
specification the old designs of the propeller driven aircraft were not up to
the job but the knowledge of high speed designs
were equally lacking. At Avro based in Manchester, the company which had built
a highly successful Lancaster bomber, a young engineer called Bob Lindley turned
to German swept-wing research that he'd seen on a trip to Germany just after the
Second World War. At first Linley's design was dismissed
but upon further investigation it was found that the DeltaWing had significant
advantages. By enclosing the engine in the wing structure an aircraft could
have a reduced drag and high stability without too much weight. Lindley would
later go to America to work on the Gemini program and the space shuttle but
his sketch became for reality before the all British Avro and was named by their
technical director Roy Chadwick after a Roman god of fire "Vulcan". The delta
wing design pioneered by the Vulcan would also go on to be used in Concorde
and a space shuttle. But the Vulcan wasn't the only
futuristic bomber being designed by the British at the time the UK government
also awarded a contract to Handley page who built the Second World War Halifax
bomber their proposed aircraft named Victor also used an advanced wing design
described as a crescent and like the Vulcan had its engines mounted in the
wing. It was also the most technologically advanced electronic
plane in the world at the time. But the government had learnt from the war that
it was better to spread the risk when dealing with new technology so the third
contract went of vickers-armstrong. Selected as the insurance option, their
design was considerably less advanced than the Vulcan or Victor but promised
to come in under budget and on time. sure enough Vickers delivered ahead of
schedule and in May 1951 the valiant was the first of a three to make it into the
skies putting pressure on Avro Handley page to deliver.
Production models of a valiant were delivered in early 1955 with the first
Vulcan following the next year and the victor by the end of 1957. When the
prototype Vulcan and victors appeared at air shows in the early 1950s they were
keen to show off their capabilities performing barrel rolls a maneuver
previously unthinkable and unbecoming of a bomber aircraft but the V bombers were
unlike anything the world had seen before, they were rewriting the book on
the jet age the V bombers not only impressed the public also friend and foe
alike. The Vulcans delta wing gave it a high
altitude performance that allowed it to turn tighter than the swept wing
fighters of the day like the lightning and the Mig-15. it also made other
bombers like the new b-52 look positively sloth like in comparison. The
V bombers were invited to the US for bombing competitions planes would fly
for hours at night to a simulated target usually a city like Tucson, Salt Lake
City or Los Angeles. There they would drop simulated nuclear bombs not real devices
but by using electronics they could calculate the accuracy of a drop. The V bombers
consistently achieved within 500 meters accuracy whilst the b-52s had quite a
lot larger errors. As the V bombers began arriving at RAF bases around the UK the
new squadrons went into immediate high alert as the Fylingdales radar scanned
the skies for ballistic missiles the procedure was for 200 V bombers to be in
the air within 4 minutes, before the Soviet missiles landed. QRA or quick
reaction alert crews trained around the clock for three levels of readiness 15
minutes, 5 minutes and just 2 minutes. Under this highest two-minute alert the
bombers would sit at the end of a runway fueled and would be engines running. In
total 136 Avro Vulcan 's 86 Handley page Victor a 107 Vickers valiance were built.
All were originally painted in anti-flash white to reflect some of the
radiation from a nuclear blast although the v-bombers never carried out
the nuclear strike mission they were designed, for the Valiant has the
distinction of being the only one of a three to drop a live nuclear device as
they were part of Britain's nuclear test program. But around this time the destiny
of a V bombers would also change. In 1957 a defense white paper announced that
ballistic missiles would be Britain's new nuclear delivery system.
Advances in surface-to-air missiles meant that the V bombers were suddenly
vulnerable there was no longer a safe high-altitude. Instead the best option
will be to climb to a high level flight over Western Europe descending to fly
just above ground level through the eastern bloc and then climbing again
before reaching their targets. The Bombers were repainted with a camouflage
on the upper aside to fit the new mission profile. However the V bombers were not designed
to fly fast at low altitudes, the denser air and increased turbulence caused fatigue
cracks on the vickers valiant which were so bad that they had to be formally
retired in 1965. The Victors also suffered from fatigue problems
although not as bad as the valiant they were also withdrawn from nuclear service
By 1968. As missiles replaced bombers in the late 1960s some of the surplus
Victors were converted into reconnaissance planes and refueling
tankers leaving just the Vulcan in the prime bomber role. By 1982 the first and
last time that the Vulcan bombers would see active service they were about to be
retired with much of our equipment looking almost as dated as the
Lancaster's they replaced him in 1950s. Much of their navigational equipment
would have easily been recognizable by world war 2 bomber pilots. Their last
mission was to bomb the Port Stanley airfield in the Falklands this would
entail the longest ever bombing run at the time flying 7,800 miles with 12,600 kilometres from a sanction island in the Atlantic to the Falklands in the
South Atlantic over open ocean in operation black buck. Three Vulcans were
chosen with a more powerful Bristol Olympus 301 engines and
supported by 11 victor tankers flying in relays. The distance was so far that the
forward victor tankers had to be refueled in midair themselves. The single
attacking Vulcan used 50,000 gallons of fuel and needed refueling five times during
the missions. Seven black buck missions were planned but only five were carried
out. Even though the missions had been a success for the Vulcans their time was up.
The last ones being retired from active service in 1984 the plane that had been
a technological tour de force in the 1960s and that made the b-52 look
old-fashioned itself had become out-of-date and unlike the modular
construction of a b-52 it couldn't be updated in the same way. One was kept as
a display plane XH558 and continued with the RAF until
1993. In 1997 it was bought by a private company and restored and toured the
country attending air shows, in fact this piece of footage I shot and my local
Clapton airshow but in 2015 it ceased flying due to it being increasingly
difficult to find the skilled service personnel and the withdrawal of support
by the original manufacturers. However it is still able to accelerate on the
runway at its doncaster sheffield airport base. The Handley page Victor was
for one which lasted the longest with the final converted tankers being
retired in 1993. The V bombers were built to shock and amaze the world to do the
unthinkable and they did it right up until their final mission. So thanks for
watching and I just like to say that this episode shirt was the Tabla
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